Best Internet Speed For Gaming: An Ultimate Guide

How do you imagine the future of gaming? How will the virtual and augmented reality shape our future? We already have 1 Gig internet plan offered by a bunch of service providers. Look up Cox Internet Plans if you want to get up to 1 Gig internet in your area. What is next? Can we achieve zero latency in the future? These are the relevant questions to ask yourself and rest assured the future will be exciting!

For gamers, latency, speed, and broadband reliability are the most sought after factors in an internet service provider. We have asked this question to ourselves a million times. How do we maximize our Call of Duty or Apex Legends experience?

So if you are an avid gamer or a part-time enthusiast, here’s what you should do to maximize your gaming experience:

Requirements

Although every console has a different requirement, three things impact your online gaming – download speed, latency, and upload speed. Whenever you’re assessing your internet speed, these factors have to be considered.

Download Speed

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Download speed is the speed at which data travels from the gaming server to your console. It is the bottleneck for online gaming and all other activities involving the internet. With significantly lower download speeds, your online gaming experience can suffer.

The minimum speed required for a decent gaming experience is 3 Mbps but this can fluctuate depending on the game being played and platform being used.

Latency

It is the delay taken by the traffic from a device to reach its destination. Gamers refer to it as “ping”. It is important because the broadband speed and strength are just raw bandwidth and online gaming requires a quick and rapid response from the server.

In simple words, your console communicates with the server at this speed. It is measured in milliseconds (ms) and higher ping indicates a slow response from the server.

Secondly, most people focus on getting high-speed internet but in fact, even with fast internet, we could still experience interrupted gaming due to latency. Ideally, 20 ms is required for smooth gaming but it has some restrictions. Therefore, keeping the latency under 150 ms is perfect for gaming.

Upload Speed

It is the speed at which data is uploaded from your console to the server. The best internet upload speed for gaming is usually higher because you’re continuously sending information to the server as you play. You should have at least 1 Mbps for a better gaming experience.

Internet Speed Requirements For Gaming By System

As we have already discussed that different systems have different internet requirements. However, you can follow these general guidelines so that you can have the most out of your gaming experience. Here are the minimum requirements for each console, and we advise that you get broadband matching these requirements:

Computers: Most PC gamers use the Ethernet cable to connect with the internet. This gives them better ping and reliability. If you are a PC gamer, you should have broadband that gives you up to 10 Mbps download or higher. The minimum upload speed should be 1 Mbps. As latency is the deciding factor and gamers get the most out of it by connecting their PCs with an Ethernet wire. They get lower latency and ping up to 100ms is ideal for the ultimate gaming experience.

PS4: PS4 users have the option to connect their consoles with an Ethernet cable. This way they get better connection and reliability. If you’re a PS4 user then the minimum broadband you should have is 15 Mbps. You can experience reduced ping with the Ethernet cable and with the regular WiFi, your broadband must get you a maximum of 150ms.

Xbox: Although PS4 won the cultural war over Xbox One there are a lot of people who still prefer Xbox over PS4. If you have an Xbox, you should have at least 15 Mbps download speeds. You can get a lower ping with an Ethernet cable but your broadband must have a maximum latency of 150ms.

Disclaimer For Multiplayer Gaming

If you are planning a game night, you should consider one thing in mind. With the addition of users, your regular internet won’t get you better gaming experience. Therefore, you need a higher tier package that could deliver at least 400 Mbps downloads.

Final Verdict!

We spent hundreds of dollars on getting the perfect console and new games for our entertainment but we fail to realize that without fast broadband you’ll go back in the stone. Therefore, you must invest in good broadband internet!